We stayed at the Citadines Central Hotel, www.citadines.com , which is an apartment hotel, our studio apartment was a decent size and while some of the common areas are looking slightly tired it was great value, in an excellent location and with pleasant helpful staff.

Restaurants

The hotel is only five minutes walk from the great eating area known as Muslim Street, packed with stalls offering kebabs, the local hamburger equivalents, great spicy potatoes and many other dishes, a very enjoyable night out and loads of souvenir shops and stalls,

Round the corner from the hotel in the street running up to the Drum Tower is a fast food restaurant with great bowls of noodles, no English menu so point at the pictures.

We ate in a bar restaurant in Defu Street, the bar street, which specialised in grilled meat with liberal chilli seasoning (which they will tone down) called something like Chill Grill, good food, really nice service and incredibly cheap.

Just by the Bell Tower is a modern mall which actually seems to be a department store and on the seventh floor are a number of food places, we ate at a smart restaurant called Spice Surprise which was very good.

Cafes & Bars

Defu Street, known as bar street, is just over five minutes walk from Citadines and the street is lined with a variety of bars, many with happy hours and most also serving food. We liked the first bar on the right at the top of the street just before the main strip and the last one on the left at the bottom, Both very relaxed no people trying to drag you into their bars.

Drink

As in all other places the most common beer is Tsingtao which you also find outside China, but locally there are variations including Tsingtao Pure Draft. If you pop into your local Xi’an eating place you may pay as little as 30p for a 600ml bottle, obviously in more upmarket places the prices reflect the surroundings. There are other bottled beers readily available including the Chinese Harbin beer and brands such as Tiger.

Wine was available in small shops but more expensive than in Beijing or Shanghai and we did not find a large supermarket although there are many in the city. We were not eating in any upmarket restaurants so not sure about selection or prices. Given the large number of visitors and the enthusiasm for wine among the more affluent Chinese I suspect there would be a reasonable choice.

The chances are that you are in Xi’an for one reason and that is to visit the amazing museum of the Terracotta Warriors, you can do this as part of an organised tour but you can also do this on your own very easily. If you are staying near the Drum and Bell Towers there is a local bus to the main railway station, not the north one used by the high speed trains. This is bus number 611, they run almost every five minutes and the fare is the equivalent of 20p, the final stop is the station and you catch the bus back from the same stop.

Once you have got off the bus walk towards the station and to the right hand side you will see an area packed with buses. The bus you want is 306 and there is a stand with a queue which you join and they load the buses from this queue. There are very regular buses and you pay for your single fare on the bus, the equivalent currently of 70p. One thing to note is that lots of people get off before the last stop which is the Terracotta Warriors, the conductor on the bus will ask you where you are going to make sure you get off at the correct stop.

You then walk to the main entrance and get your ticket for the site. The warriors are incredible, the site contains Pits 1, 2 and 3 and if I was to go again I would visit 2 and 3 then Pit 1 last. This way you get to see the best last. If you do Pit 1 first the other two will probably seem rather disappointing. There are loads of souvenir shops and places to eat outside the main entrance before you reach the bus park but the toilet facilities are not as good as in the site itself. The buses return from the same place as they arrived.

The other main sites on a short visit are the Drum Tower, the Bell Tower and the Great Mosque. The city walls are also incredible and ring the centre of the city. The four gates are quite far apart, we only saw the south one but the buildings around this looked very interesting.

We stayed at the Jinjiang MetroPolo Hotel Classiq, formerly the Marvel YMCA, www.jinjianghotels.com , at 123 S. Xizang Road, it was a great choice. We arrived in the morning and were able to check into our room which was top notch, very large, well appointed and a super view. The service from start to finish was excellent and we were delighted with our choice, the location, almost opposite the Shanghai Museum, and next to Dashijie Metro was very central.

Restaurants

Shanghai probably has China’s trendiest eating places as you would expect from a city which is packed with high rollers, ex-pat workers from all over the world and huge amounts of visitors. As well as examples of cooking from all over China it has also attracted some of the world’s top chefs. You can eat incredibly well and cheaply at local places or try the more upmarket.

As in other parts of Asia the shopping malls are packed with really good places to eat. Marina Bay was a seafood restaurant in one of the malls on E. Nanjing Road and Charme, in a mall on M. Xizang Road, are chain restaurants but both had good food, service, smart surroundings and were very reasonably priced.

Table No.1 by Jason Atherton, at the Waterhouse Hotel, in the trendy Cool Docks area we had booked in advance for lunch and it was top notch, three courses of really great cooking for currently the equivalent of £18, excellent service, good setting, and overseen by the excellent manager May. Definitely a culinary highlight of the trip.

Din Tai Fung, are a Taiwanese chain doing “to die for” dumplings, they have places throughout Asia and a number of locations in Shanghai including Xintiandi in the French Concession. The ones with truffle are legendary and sell out fast at weekends. If they are full you are put on a list and should get a table fairly quickly.

Hai Da Lo is another famous chain, this time for the fabulous hot pots and the amazing service, including manicures if you have to wait for a table. We tried the one at 1068 W. Beijing Road at a relatively quiet time. This allowed us to work out the IPad ordering and that you could order half portions of beef, lamb, vegetables, noodles etc. to cook in your hot pot – for us half tomato and half mushroom broths. What a great experience, top quality food and service.

Enoterra, Anfu Road, French Concession West, is a very smart wine bar with a wide selection and it also does meals such as meat and cheese platters and burgers when you fancy something more like home. Good service and reasonably priced, they have a couple of places in the city including one in the IFC Mall in Pudong and one in Beijing check them out on www.enoterra.com.cn .

The Dining Room, at Taikang Road, just opposite Tianzifang in the French Concession is a modern restaurant, with other branches in the city. A good selection of “Shanghai” staples with friendly service at bargain prices.

In Tianzifang, Origins was good for a weekend brunch, the food was good the service well meaning but slightly chaotic, the steak, eggs & potatoes on the brunch menu with a Bloody Mary almost made up for it, good week night offers.

I have left a local gem to last, in the food area of Yunnan Road and five minutes from Dashijie metro, is a great seafood place on the corner of S. Yunnan Rd. and E. Ninghai Rd. It also does a huge selection of other dishes including a great duck hot pot. We ate there on a number of occasions, every dish was excellent and they were also happy to serve up a cold beer at the times they were not packed out with locals. We have the card but sadly the name remains a mystery.

Cafes & Bars

Cheapest place for a drink and a night time view of the Shanghai skyline must be the Captains bar on the top floor of the Captains Hostel, 37 Fuzhou Road. The terrace is a great place to sit out with a beer or wine and gaze at the wonderful views.

Estado Puro in Xintiandi is part of a small Spanish Group, known in Madrid for the great upmarket “new style” tapas. The Shanghai branch is very trendy but does lunch and happy hour offers, one of the coolest in the Xintiandi complex.

Shanghai Brewery, 15 Dongping Road, is in the French Concession West area and is a large microbrewery bar with a good range of beers, reasonably priced and a menu that obviously appeals to the largely ex-pat crowd. A good place for a beer especially at happy hour 2 – 8 pm.

Enoterra, have a wine shop in the IFC Mall beneath the Shanghai Finance Centre tower, huge selection of wines to buy and you can drink a bottle in the bar/café area for no corkage fee, wonderfully helpful manager Charles made this a great stop.

Cloud 9 at the Grand Hyatt on the 87th floor of the Jinmao Tower is the place to go if you want a view with a drink and to avoid the queues for the observation decks of the 3 tallest skyscrapers in Pudong. It opens at 5pm, get a good table, a bottle of wine and watch the sun set, a wonderful place to enjoy the amazing site.

Drink

Local beer is mainly Tsingtao which you find outside China, but locally there are variations including Tsingtao Pure Draft and Suntory. If you pop into your local eating place you may pay as little as £1 for a 600ml bottle, obviously in more upmarket places the prices reflect the surroundings. There are other bottled beers readily available including the Chinese Harbin beer, and China now has many small micro breweries.

China has overtaken France as the largest consumer of red wine and while historically they have always favoured French wines there are plenty of other imported wines on offer. In supermarkets they tend to be reasonably priced, in restaurants the prices vary from similar to home to stratospheric. China has historically produced wine for centuries and joint ventures with French companies started around 1980 and exporting of Chinese wine to countries like the US began far more recently. Experts think that soon the quality may rival wines from Bordeaux.

The amount of preparation for the trip meant sadly I had not done my homework on local wines and given the relatively high prices we stuck with imported wines.

The Shanghai Museum is a must and the bronzes on the ground floor were the highlight of an amazing collection in a wonderful building.. The Bund is a must see stroll especially with the stunning Pudong skyline on the other side of the river, try it both during the day and at night.

The old town and in particular the Yuyuan Gardens and Bazaar should be explored but the crowds particularly at the weekend can be enormous. Beware of groups of English speaking young people who ask you to take their photo and then try an take you to a tea ceremony which will cost you a fortune, they are all over the area close to the gardens.

The French Concession including Tianzifang and Xintiandi are also a must, these two complexes of shops, restaurants and bars in “traditional” layouts should be visited, Tianzifang is the more charming, including local housing as well as the entertainment part.

Worth a trip on the subway is Qibao a suburb with a traditional area built around a canal with great eating and souvenir hunting, and boat trips along the canal. This is well worth exploring.

Pearl buying is a popular thing to do in Shanghai and there are many pearl markets around, we went to the Pearl Village Market, Jin Yu Building, 28 Middle FangBang Road very close to the Yiuyuan Gardens & Bazaar. We chose Anny’s Shop, Floor B1 Shop E1 & E2 and were delighted with the service and price. We were buying for ourselves and for a friend who had visited Shanghai before. The care, attention, choice, quality and price made this a great choice.

We stayed at the Red Wall Garden Hotel, www.redwallgardenhotel.com 41 Shijia Hutong, Doncheng, a beautiful oasis of calm built round a lovely courtyard. The location is good for exploring the main sites of the city and there are places to eat nearby at all price ranges. The hotel’s Courtyard restaurant is very reasonably priced and offers a lovely selection of dishes from various regions of China as well as beer, wine and cocktails. This was the most expensive of the hotels we chose during our trip but the free airport transfer, available with some on line bookings, and the facilities made it well worth the price.

Restaurants

You can eat at all price ranges in Beijing and armed with a phrase book you can cope even in places that lack an English menu, if you cannot recognise the pictures (if they have them) point at words like chicken or beef in your phrase book – it worked.

We had decided to on a couple of upmarket meals and had booked TRB, Temple Restaurant Beijing, www.trb-cn.com, for lunch, it was slightly difficult to find but it was our first full day in the city and it was so worth seeking out. The service and food were both top notch, more details are on the Blog page.

Dali Courtyard, email – dalicourtyard@gmail.com , had been high on the list to try and was also recommended by China DIY Travel. Our hotel booked a table for us and we enjoyed a 4 course no choice menu of dishes from Yunnan province.

Close by is Nanluogoxiang Hutong which is a lovely area to explore packed with shops, bars and restaurants. We were pointed in the direction of Saveurs de Coree, a lovely Korean restaurant with very good food and lovely service which turned out to be a really good recommendation.

A must is of course Peking Duck, and after studying at length various reports of the top restaurants for our duck experience I chose Bianyifang, which is reputed to be the original one and one of the more traditional. They have a number of places but we chose the one at the China New World Shopping Mall near the Temple of Heaven. Unable to secure a booking we were told to turn up at 5pm and managed to get a table before it totally filled up with locals. The duck was fabulous and the presentation and show of your own chef carving your own duck made it a feast to remember.

The food stalls along the length of Dong’anmen Dajie are great for a night’s street eating, yes you pay a bit more than in some of the hutong areas, but everything is priced and usually with English translations. The meat skewers are great as are the fruit ones.

The Lakes area of Beijing is beautiful to stroll around and we enjoyed a very good Vietnamese lunch at Nuage, 22 Qianhai Lake East Bank, lovely to sit and look out over the lake and enjoy good and reasonably priced Vietnamese food.

Cafes & Bars

Zuo An Dong Hua, 36 Nan Chi Zi Street, is in the road that runs along the side of the Forbidden City and we found this little gem of a bar on our first evening. A friendly, quirky bar with a good drinks selection, a great find.

Yin, is the rooftop bar at the nearby Emperor Hotel, it is worth the climb up for the view over the Forbidden City but the drinks are on the pricey side, still worth doing once.

Alba Café, 70 Golou Dong Dajie, is on the main road near the Dali Courtyard, we enjoyed it for pre and post dinner drinks but there are reports that the food and service are not as good as before and certainly the service was on the slow side. It was still a comfortable space in which to have a relaxed drink.

On Shijia Hutong between the Red Wall Garden Hotel and Dongsi Street there are a number of small local eating places, we frequented one that was very popular for it’s selection of donkey meat dishes, a local delicacy. The donkey meat sandwich in flaky pastry was delicious and their incredibly reasonably priced cold beer provided welcome relief on many an occasion.

Drink

Local beer is mainly Tsingtao which you find outside China, but locally there are variations including Tsingtao Pure Draft. If you pop into your local eating place you may pay as little as 50p for a 600ml bottle, obviously in more upmarket places the prices reflect the surroundings. There are other bottled beers readily available including the Chinese Harbin beer, and China now has many small micro breweries, we tried a lovely honey beer which was brewed in Beijing.

China has overtaken France as the largest consumer of red wine and while historically they have always favoured French wines there are plenty of other imported wines on offer. In supermarkets they tend to be reasonably priced in restaurants the prices vary from similar to home to stratospheric. China has historically produced wine for centuries and joint ventures with French companies started around 1980 and exporting of Chinese wine to countries like the US began far more recently. Experts think that soon the quality may rival wines from Bordeaux.

The amount of preparation for the trip meant sadly I had not done my homework on local wines and given the relatively high prices we stuck with imported wines.

If you are visiting Beijing I am sure that you will already have a long list of things to see and do and there is just so much to see in the city but in our five days we managed to see almost everything on the wish list.

The Great Wall for a day trip, the Forbidden City, the Lama Temple, Tian’anmen Square and the Temple of Heaven were all fantastic. We also fitted in the Lake Area and also the delights of Nanluogoxiang Hutong.

All the above and the great eating choices made Beijing a truly memorable city.

Check out the usual booking sites such as www.booking.com or www.venere.com we chose Kowloon for its easy access, the views to Hong Kong Island, the night markets and also for the number of places for eating.

On our first visit we stayed at The Salisbury Hotel which is run by the YMCA and is on Salisbury Road in Kowloon, next door to the Peninsula Hotel, probably the most famous and expensive hotel in Hong Kong. Don’t be put of by seeing the mention of YMCA, this is a modern well appointed hotel and you can have an excellent harbour view room for a very reasonable price. Hotels in Hong Kong seem to fall into two categories, very expensive or not where you would really want to stay, so the Salisbury is a fantastic alternative. The K2 Airport Express shuttle bus stops outside the door at the side of the Peninsula.You need to book early as we were unable to stay there on our second visit.

This time we stayed at the Royal Pacfic Hotel, in Canton Road, Kowloon. While it did not have the views of the Salisbury, staying in a complex with it’s own outlet shopping mall, supermarket, food court, ferry terminal and airport bus stop did have some advantages. The location, service and facilities made this a good second choice.

Restaurants

This is probably best dealt with in two sections Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, there is no shortage of all types of options in both areas, so wherever you are staying make sure you eat and drink on both sides of the harbour.

Kowloon

There are loads of places all over Kowloon, cheap Chinese street food should be tried at Temple Street night market, pick somewhere you like the look of that is busy and order lots of dishes.The best choice is in the second section of the market where it is mainly eating places.

There is more upmarket dining at Knutsford Terrace just up from Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station. Ashley Road is also packed with places, we tried Pho Vietnamese at 23-25 and it was good and reasonably priced, as was the Satay Inn at the Royal Pacific complex. The Harbour City Mall is packed with some great eating places but particularly on weekend evenings the queue can be horrendous. The upmarket hotels in Kowloon have some top end restaurants many with at least one Michelin Star.

One Dim Sum, also has a Michelin Star and is the best Dim Sum I have ever eaten. It is located at 15 Playing Fields Rd, Mongkok Kowloon. The nearest metro is Prince Edward, there are no reservations you just get a number and wait but boy is it worth it. we had six different Dim Sum dishes and the bill was the equivalent of £10, fantastic food.

Hong Kong Island

Central area has a variety of places to eat, you can try lunchtime Dim Sum at Maxim’s City Palace in the low block at City Hall, Connaught Road. Not easy to find but once you get to City Hall ask. It is a huge place where you will probably have to queue but it is worth it, trolleys of all sorts loaded with different types of Dim Sum, very reasonable and a great HK experience.

Lan Kwaii Fong, LKF, is one of the main bar and restaurant areas centred around D’Aguilar Street, there are all sorts of places to try but the best eating places seem to be spreading towards Shueng Wan and Wan Chai.

Wan Chai was the slightly sleezy area with some basic bars but now along side the old bars are some great trendy eating places and bars, this really is a good area to explore a couple of highlights are below.

22 Ships, at 22 Ship Street, is owned by Michelin star chef Jason Atherton, the menu is Spanish style tapas dishes, they do not take reservations. The food and service are top notch, we shared two dishes for  Sunday brunch and were delighted with our choices.

The Yuu Japanese Restaurant, 183 Queen Road, we visited for a drink and some snacks but loved the atmosphere and watching the chefs prepare the Japanese dishes, would definitely give this a try on another visit.

Chilli Club, 88 Lockhart Road, does excellent Thai food, the whole baked fish is fantastic, great to see it still gets such good reports but did not get a chance to revisit as there were so many new places to try.

Sheun Wan is the area where we had two great dining experiences. ABC Kitchen, Queen Street Cooked Food Market, 38 Des Voeux Road West, serves top notch French cooking at bargain prices. The setting in a food market where there are other eating places is different for this type of food but every dish was excellent, the service very good and the price an absolute bargain. Booking is advised for dinner st weekends.

Yardbird, 33-35 Bridges Street, is at the other end of the spectrum, very cool and trendy and no reservations for “beak to tail” Japanese yakitori cooking. We arrived just as it opened and got a table end before the queues. The service and food was excellent, take advice on the number of dishes and size from the very knowledgeable staff and you will have a great experience.

Soho or the Mid Levels you explore by going up the series of long escalators from Queens Road and this takes you up to a great area for eating and drinking, as you go up the escalators you can look down and see where you want to eat or drink, see some recommendations for bars below.

One excellent eating place is Gianni’s at 51 Elgin Street, overseen by the charming Gianni from Puglia in Italy, this is old school good Italian cooking. The set lunch is a great way to sample the cooking and also to chat to Gianni as he makes sure all the customers are being looked after.

The Peak, if you are visiting the Peak and want some lunch then in the Galleria complex is an excellent Vietnamese called Pho Yummee, the dishes were excellent and reasonably priced.

Bars

Most places do Happy Hours some lasting many hours, take advantage of these as drinks are not cheap in this city.

Kowloon

Minden Avenue near Tsim Sha Tsui has some very upmarket trendy drinking places but also in the area are a few pub style places, one the Roadside Bar in Hart Avenue is a tiny bar always packed, good music and nice staff.

Mes Amis, 15 Ashley Road is a lovely local bar that does food and stays open late, there are loads of other places in this street, some pub type and stacks of places to eat, it is 5 minutes from the Salisbury. Ned Kellys at number 11 has a long happy hour and live jazz most evening, popular with an ex-pat crowd.

Felix Cocktail Bar on top of the Peninsula Hotel is worth a visit, to see the hotel and to see the views, not cheap. I preferred Acqua, at 1 Peking Road, a shopping centre nearby, the views are as good and the service better, worth every Hong Kong dollar.

Utopia, on the 26th Floor of the Jordan Centre, 7 Hillwood Road, gives you excellent views with drinks at very reasonable prices especially at happy hour, very quiet the night we visited but still worth a try for the view.

Hong Kong Island

Staunton’s Wine Bar, 10-12 Staunton Street, is worth a visit for a drink and the Peak Café Bar round the corner in Shelley Street is excellent, a great spot for people watching. Down the hill in Peel Street is a bar called Joyce Is Not Here, a lovely tiny place doing live music.

Oolaa, Bridges Street is a large bar and restaurant which does great happy hour offers, some of the best offers I have seen and lovely service in a very smart surroundings.

The Beer Bay is located at Piers 3 and 4, and handy for commuters stopping for a well priced beer, from a vast selection, or a wine. These are both stalls without any real seating but definitely worth stopping by for a beer or wine.

In Shueng Wan we found a local bar called The Cottage, 87-89 Jervois Street, friendly service and reasonable prices, popular with ex-pats as they have sport on TV.

Drink

This is a city where you can drink anything, in any sort of bar you can imagine such as the highest in the world to the world of Suzy Wong type bars in Wan Chai and probably at any time of the day or night. This is also the city where drinking outside the 7 Eleven shops in Wan Chai is normal for lots of people out for the evening.

My advice would be to sample all the types available in as many different areas as possible, taking advantage of happy hour where possible. Prices vary hugely from area to area, hotels with cocktail bars and stunning views are very expensive but should be done at least once, LKF is expensive and teeming with people particularly Friday night and Wan Chai has all sorts of bars.

Kowloon has the same diverse range of bars as HKI including of course some of the best bars with views such as Felix and Acqua. Also loads around Ashley Road and Minden Avenue, you are bound to find something to suit you.

The Star Ferry is one of the best journeys in the world, always use the top deck, worth the extra cents that you have to pay.

Sheung Wan district on HKI is great to wander around, stroll along Hollywood Road and the alleys around there and visit the Mon Mo Chinese temple, there are some great eating places in this area.

Get the Bus across the Island to Stanley, the views on the journey are great and Stanley has a very good market, much less frenetic than the ones in Kowloon and loads of waterside place to eat and drink. Murray House, the lovely building at the end of the promenade also has a numbers of restaurants. It is very easy to get to, then get a bus to Aberdeen and return from there by bus.

The Peak is a must, you have to take the Peak Tram up and see the amazing views, a coffee in the Pacific Coffee Company buys you ones of the greatest views anywhere. There are loads of places to eat up at the top, see recommendation above. If like me you do not like the steep tram, especially on the way down there is a bus service No. 15.

The Edward Youde Aviary in Hong Kong Park is well worth a visit, it is just five minutes from the Peak Tram Terminus and entrance is free. You walk into the top of a jungle canopy in which dozens of exotic birds fly around, it is absolutely fabulous.

Take a ferry to one of the other islands. Lamma island is small and it is possible to get a ferry to one side and walk across in about an hour and a half, finish up at Sok Kwu Wan where there are a dozen or so seafood restaurants, they can seem a bit pushy but the set meals are incredible value, we went to the Tahi Yuen Seafood Restaurant run by a very nice lady called Karen, very good and very cheap.

The Ladies Market & Temple Street Night Market in Kowloon can be done in one evening use the MTR to go first to the Ladies Market then hop on it back along to Temple Street and eat the Chinese street food.

On Hong Kong Island get on board one of the old trams and go from one end of the North Side of the island from Kennedy Town down to Happy Valley or Causeway Bay.

Macao, is well worth a day trip, ferries go from HKI and China Ferry Terminal in Kowloon, You can book tickets in advance for the hours journey by high speen catamaran. You require your passport. There is a bus from the ferry to the heart of the old town. There is a great value lunch at the Club Militar but you ned to book and also shorts are not allowed. If you fail to get in try Boa Mesa, Travess S.Domingos for Portuguese cooking.